Today my joy is focused on the absolute truth that the Bible is a revelation from a loving God to us, a revelation about the divine nature, human nature, and the divine-human encounter. I am grateful and secure in the knowledge that God, being omniscient and all-powerful, is perfectly capable of speaking clearly to us through human words and human writers on such matters.
I am thrilled to live in the truth of 2 Tim. 3.16 ("All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness"). This is spoken first about the Old Testament scriptures, and is equally applicable to the New Testament.
What this means in principle to me is that I do not see theorizing or speculating on theology as a creative enterprise where I get to generate my own belief system. Rather, I see it as a lifelong process of striving for understanding about what God is trying to tell us through the wonderful--and sometimes myterious--Biblical discourse.
My assumption is that once I understand what Scripture actually teaches on a subject like atonement, then it is an issue for affirmation and obedience, not debate. To paraphrase Mark Twain, "...it's not the parts of the Bible that I don't understand that concern me, It's the parts that I DO understand."
Johannes Bengel, the great German commentator on the Bible, once said, "Apply the whole of the text to yourself. Apply the whole of yourself to the text." It is a good motto.
{It means a commitment to lifelong study of God's word. It means a commitment to avail oneself of all of the resources, commentaries, lexicons, and dictionaries one can possibly muster in order to interpret the word of God rightly.} Witherington
And all that leads to continually growing Wondrous Joy!
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